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In his first companywide email to Twitter employees, new owner and CEO Elon Musk said he was ending the social network’s “work from home forever” policy. Now, according to the email obtained by CNBC, Musk wants employees to be in a Twitter office at least 40 hours a week, and plans to personally approve any alternative arrangements.

He also warned employees that the company might not survive the economic downturn without significant subscription revenue. Musk wants to shift the company’s business so that it generates at least half of its revenue from subscriptions, and can become less reliant on advertising. But he said, in the staff email, that he still anticipates Twitter will generate significant revenue from advertisers.

Bloomberg previously reported on the policy changes.

These changes come amid additional resignations from C-level executives at Twitter including Chief Information and Security Officer Lea Kissner, current employees told CNBC.

On Twitter, Kissner wrote:

“I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter. I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I’m so proud of the privacy, security, and IT teams and the work we’ve done. I’m looking forward to figuring out what’s next.” Kissner also noted, “I’ve loved this job and we got *so* much done, but here we are.”

Musk’s return-to-office policy for Twitter reflects one that he implemented at his electric vehicle maker, Tesla, earlier this year. On May 31, he told Tesla employees that they must return to the office at least 40 hours a week or resign.

Some Tesla employees who were unable to return to the office right away were told they would be able to continue their work for another several weeks but said they were fired instead, when they did not immediately agree to come back.

Twitter’s workplace culture stood in stark contrast to that of Musk’s electric car and sustainable energy company.

Co-founder and then-CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey, who pushed for Musk to take over the company, told employees in May 2020 they could work from home “forever,” becoming one of the first companies to institute such a lasting remote work policy during the Covid pandemic.

Many advertisers have paused spending on Twitter until Musk and his team can prove that under their leadership, the social network is able to curb hate speech, online harassment, fake accounts and fraud effectively.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Here’s the full e-mail from Musk to Twitter staff, transcribed by CNBC.

From: Elon Musk [email removed]

Date: Nov 9, 2022 [time stamp removed]

To: Team

Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company but there is no way to sugarcoat the message.

Frankly, the economic picture ahead is dire especially for a company like ours that is so dependent on advertising in a challenging economic climate. Moreover, 70% of our advertising is brand, rather than specific performance, which makes us doubly vulnerable! 

That is why the priority over the past ten days has been to develop and launch Twitter Blue Verified subscriptions (huge props to the team!). 

Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn. We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.

Of course, we will still then be significantly reliant on advertising, so I am spending time with our sales & partnerships teams to ensure that Twitter continues to be appealing to advertisers.  

This is the Spaces discussion that Robin, Yoel and I hosted today: [Link to Elon Q&A: Advertising & the Future removed] 

The road ahead is arduous and will require intense work to succeed. We are also changing Twitter policy such that remote work is no longer allowed unless you have a specific exception. Managers will send the exception lists to me for review and approval.

Starting tomorrow (Thursday), everyone is required to be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week. Obviously, if you are physically unable to travel to an office or have a critical personal obligation, then your absence is understandable.

I look forward to working with you to take Twitter to a whole new level. The potential is truly incredible!

Thanks,

Elon

WATCH: Twitter is now Elon Musk’s company — Here’s how experts responded to the news

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Nvidia says U.S. government will allow it to resume H20 AI chip sales to China

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Nvidia says U.S. government will allow it to resume H20 AI chip sales to China

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attends a roundtable discussion at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 11, 2025.

Sarah Meyssonnier | Reuters

Nvidia announced Tuesday that it hopes to resume sales of its H20 general processing units to clients in China, saying that the U.S. government had assured the company would be granted licenses.

Nvidia’s sales of the H20 chips, which had been designed specifically to keep them out of export controls on China, were halted in April.

“The U.S. government has assured NVIDIA that licenses will be granted, and NVIDIA hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement.

This comes against the backdrop of a preliminary trade deal between Washington and Beijing last month that sought China to resume rare earth exports and the U.S. to relax tech export controls.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in recent months has ramped up his lobbying against export controls, arguing that they inhibited American tech leadership. In May, Huang said chip restrictions had already cut Nvidia’s China market share nearly in half.

Huang also announced a new “fully compliant” GPU, NVIDIA RTX PRO, saying it was ideal for smart factories and logistics.

The potential change in U.S. stance follows a meeting between Huang and U.S. President Donald Trump last week.

In his meeting with Trump and U.S. policymakers, Huang had reaffirmed Nvidia’s support for the administration’s job creation and onshoring efforts, as well as the aim for America to lead in global AI, the company said.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, it was confirmed that Huang has met with government and industry officials to discuss the benefits of AI and ways for researchers to advance safe and secure AI for the benefit of all. 

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Cognition to buy AI startup Windsurf days after Google poached CEO in $2.4 billion licensing deal

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Cognition to buy AI startup Windsurf days after Google poached CEO in .4 billion licensing deal

In this photo illustration, a man seen holding a smartphone with the logo of US artificial intelligence company Cognition AI Inc. in front of website.

Timon Schneider | SOPA Images | Sipa USA | AP

Artificial intelligence startup Cognition announced it’s acquiring Windsurf, the AI coding company that lost its CEO and several other senior employees to Google just days earlier.

Cognition said on Monday that it will purchase Windsurf’s intellectual property, product, trademark, brand and talent, but didn’t disclose terms of the deal. It’s the latest development in an AI talent war, as companies like Meta, Google and OpenAI fiercely compete for top engineers and researchers.

OpenAI had been in talks to acquire Windsurf for about $3 billion in April, but the deal fell apart, and Google said on Friday that it hired Windsurf’s co-founder and CEO Varun Mohan. Google is paying $2.4 billion in licensing fees and for compensation, as CNBC previously reported.

“Every new employee of Cognition will be treated the same way as existing employees: with transparency, fairness, and deep respect for their abilities and value,” Cognition CEO Scott Wu wrote in a memo to employees on Monday. “After today, our efforts will be as a united and aligned team. There’s only one boat and we’re all in it together.”

Cognition didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. Windsurf directed CNBC to Cognition.

Cognition is best known for its AI coding agent named Devin, which is designed to help engineers build software faster. As of March, the startup had raised hundreds of millions of dollars at a valuation of close to $4 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Both companies are backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. Other investors in Windsurf include Greenoaks, Kleiner Perkins and General Catalyst.

“I’m overwhelmed with excitement and optimism, but most of all, gratitude,” Jeff Wang, the interim CEO of Windsurf, wrote in a post on X on Monday. “Trying times reveal character, and I couldn’t be prouder of how every single person at Windsurf showed up these last three days for each other and for our users.”

Wu said that the acquisition ensures all Windsurf employees are “treated with respect and well taken care of in this transaction.” All employees will participate financially in the deal, have vesting cliffs waived for their work to date and receive fully accelerated vesting for their, according to the memo.

“There’s never been a more exciting time to build,” Wu wrote.

WATCH: Google snatches Windsurf CEO after OpenAI deal dissolves

Google snatches Windsurf CEO after OpenAI deal dissolves

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Musk’s xAI faces European scrutiny over Grok’s ‘horrific’ antisemitic posts

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Musk's xAI faces European scrutiny over Grok's 'horrific' antisemitic posts

The Grok logo is being displayed on a smartphone with Xai visible in the background in this photo illustration on April 1, 2024. 

Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty Images

The European Union on Monday called in representatives from Elon Musk‘s xAI after the company’s social network X, and chatbot Grok, generated and spread anti-semitic hate speech, including praise for Adolf Hitler, last week.

A spokesperson for the European Commission told CNBC via e-mail that a technical meeting will take place on Tuesday.

xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sandro Gozi, a member of Italy’s parliament and member of the Renew Europe group, last week urged the Commission to hold a formal inquiry.

“The case raises serious concerns about compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA) as well as the governance of generative AI in the Union’s digital space,” Gozi wrote.

X was already under a Commission probe for possible violations of the DSA.

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Grok also generated and spread offensive posts about political leaders in Poland and Turkey, including Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

Over the weekend, xAI posted a statement apologizing for the hateful content.

“First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced. … After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause was an update to a code path upstream of the @grok bot,” the company said in the statement.

Musk and his xAI team launched a new version of Grok Wednesday night amid the backlash. Musk called it “the smartest AI in the world.”

xAI works with other businesses run and largely owned by Musk, including Tesla, the publicly traded automaker, and SpaceX, the U.S. aerospace and defense contractor.

Despite Grok’s recent outburst of hate speech, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded xAI a $200 million contract to develop AI. Anthropic, Google and OpenAI also received AI contracts.

CNBC’s April Roach contributed to this article.

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